One day, Akbar asked, “What is the whitest and brightest of all?” All the courtiers began discussing what it could be. Some of them felt cotton is the brightest and whitest, while others said it is milk. When Akbar asked Birbal, he replied, “Sunlight, Your Majesty.” Akbar asked Birbal to prove it. When Akbar went for a nap, he asked that the curtains of his bedroom be drawn. When he woke up and walked towards the door, he tripped over something on the floor. He opened the door and sunlight streamed in. He saw a bowl of milk on the floor, and some cotton strewn beside it. “Who kept these things here?” Akbar shouted. Birbal said, “I did, Your Majesty. If milk and cotton were the whitest, you could have seen these in the dark. But you could see them only in the sunlight. So, isn’t sunlight the whitest and brightest?” Akbar praised Birbal’s common sense.
Bright, White Sunlight
